Kenyan police assault three journalists, detain one

New York, March 21,
2012--Kenyan authorities should hold responsible police officers who
assaulted three reporters last week and drop a baseless legal case against one
of them, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

At least 10 police
officers in plainclothes surrounded Suleiman Mbatiah, a reporter for the Daily
Nation, after he took photographs of an undercover traffic operation in
the western town of Nakuru on March 13, according to news
reports. "They came behind me while I was taking photos and grabbed my
camera. I thought they were thieves," Mbatiah told CPJ. The journalist said the
men roughed him up, injuring his left arm, damaged his camera, and took him in
a police van to the station, where they detained him for about nine hours. The
police accused him of assaulting and obstructing police officers, resisting
arrest, and crossing a highway in an illegal area, according to news reports.

Nakuru police chief Johnston Ipara told CPJ
that Mbatiah was accused of assaulting a police officer, after the officer grabbed
the journalist's camera, and denied that Mbatiah was assaulted. While not formally charged, the journalist is expected to be arraigned in court this week
in connection with the case, Mbatiah told CPJ.

Two journalists who
witnessed the arrest, James Gitau with the Kenya News Agency and Sam Kimani of
Radio Mwananchi and Kameme FM, said the police did assault Mbatiahandalso said they had been roughed up and threatened with arrest, news
reports said. "They threatened to arrest us after we
inquired why they had arrested Mbatiah," Gitau told CPJ.

"The era in which Kenyan police can abuse journalists with impunity
must come to an end," said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. "Police must
drop the spurious accusations against Mbatiah and hold to account the police agents
involved in this attack."

Gitau and Kimani
went to Nakuru's Central Police Station to demand Mbatiah's release, and he was released later that
evening, local journalists told CPJ. Journalists in Nakuru are staging a media
blackout on police coverage to protest the attack, Kimani said.